• Wind and Structures
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.201-251
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• 1999

Flexible structures may experience excessive levels of vibration under the action of wind, adversely affecting serviceability and occupant comfort. To ensure the functional performance of a structure, various design modifications are possible, ranging from alternative structural systems to the utilization of passive and active control devices. This paper presents an overview of state-of-the-art measures that reduce the structural response of buildings, including a summary of recent work in aerodynamic tailoring and a discussion of auxiliary damping devices for mitigating the wind-induced motion of structures. In addition, some discussion of the application of such devices to improve structural resistance to seismic events is also presented, concluding with detailed examples of the application of auxiliary damping devices in Australia, Canada, China, Japan, and the United States.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.61-80
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• 2006

The concept of structural vibration control is to absorb vibration energy of the structure by introducing auxiliary devices. Various types of structural vibration control theories and devices have been recently developed and introduced into mechanical systems. One of such devices is damper employing controllable fluids such as ElectroRheological (ER) or MagnetoRheological (MR) fluids. MagnetoRheological (MR) materials are suspensions of fine magnetizable ferromagnetic particles in a non-magnetic medium exhibiting controllable rheological behaviour in the presence of an applied magnetic field. This paper presents the modelling of an MRfluid damper. The damper model is developed based on Newtonian shear flow and Bingham plastic shear flow models. The geometric parameters are varied to get the optimised damper characteristics. The numerical analysis is carried out to estimate the damping coefficient and damping force. The analytical results are compared with the experimental results. The results confirm that MR damper is one of the most promising new semi-active devices for structural vibration control.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.547-577
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• 2013

To suppress vibration and noise of mechanical structures piezoelectric ceramics play an increasing role as effective, simple and light-weighted damping devices as they are suitable for sensing and actuating. Out of the various piezoelectric damping methods this paper compares mode based active control strategies to passive shunt damping for thin plates. Therefore, a new approach for the optimal placement of the piezoelectric sensors/actuators, or more general transducers, is proposed after intense theoretical investigations based on the Kirchhoff kinematical hypotheses of plates; in particular, modal and nilpotent transducers are discussed in detail. Based on the proposed distribution a discrete design for modal transducers is implemented, tested and verified on an experimental setup. For active control the modal sensors clearly identify the eigenmodes, whereas the modal actuators impose distributed eigenstrains in order to reduce the transverse plate vibrations. In contrast to the modal control, passive shunt damping works without requiring additional actuators or auxiliary power and can therefore act as an autonomous system, but it is less effective compensating the flexible vibrations. Exemplarily, an acryl glass plate disturbed by an arbitrary force initialized by a loudspeaker is investigated. Comparing the different methods their specific advantages are highlighted and a significant broadband reduction of the vibrations of up to -20dB is obtained.